Energy

In 2019, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has been reacting to the public catching on to its blatant partisanship and prioritization of corporations and ultrawealthy donors by undergoing some image rehab. Unfortunately, the Chamber’s substantive policy agenda remains as regressive as ever—anti-family, anti-worker, anti-consumer and anti-climate.

For an example of the Chamber putting lipstick on a pig, look no further than its recently-unveiled “American Energy: Cleaner, Stronger” agenda released through its Global Energy Institute (GEI). The agenda uses lots of buzzwords like “clean,” “renewable,” and “sustainable,” and its acknowledgement that climate change is a clear and present danger demanding action could easily trick you into thinking that the Chamber has softened its historical opposition to meaningful climate action. But this is merely PR-driven smoke and mirrors.

A closer look at what the agenda proposes reveals that it’s actually a continuation of that opposition, proposing that climate change be “resolved” through the private sector rather than through legislation and regulation, and advocating America’s continued reliance on fossil fuels. By the Chamber’s own admission, the purpose of the agenda is to obstruct public action on climate: it warns of “state and national leaders go[ing] too far with policy recommendations” and proposes that instead the private sector should lead the way through “innovation and technology.” This is a tactic Frank Luntz promoted all the way back in 2002: use language that makes you sound knowledgeable and reasonable to get away with maintaining inaction on climate change.

This plan is not remotely sufficient to meet the enormous challenge of addressing our climate needs. The international consensus on climate change estimates that we have only 12 years to cut global greenhouse gas pollution in half in order to avoid potentially catastrophic amounts of global warming. No one who has studied the issue could say with a straight face that we can reach that target through “innovation and technology” alone drastic government policy change is needed to zero out U.S. pollution on the timetable we need. In fact, the Chamber even posits that climate action should not be time constrained (with targets like 10 or 12 years in mind), even though the nature of the climate change problem requires that we solve it quickly.

The Chamber does not intend to actually meet the task of preventing unacceptable levels of climate change; it just wants plausible deniability against accusations of being a bad actor on climate. The Chamber knows it needs to adjust to the reality that voters are increasingly concerned about climate change, but has chosen to do so in a way that opposes real solutions. The reality is that deregulation and continued reliance on fossil fuels will make things worse, not better.

Goosing Up the Numbers

The Chamber justifies taking this inadequate approach by using some very suspect public opinion polling, commissioned by the Chamber/GEI and conducted by FTI Consulting. As argued by clean energy policy analyst Joel Stronberg, the survey’s questions are designed in a loaded way aimed toward achieving the kinds of results the Chamber wants. For instance, the Chamber’s results show respondent sentiment is only weakly in favor of “[r]equiring all aspects of the U.S. economy to eliminate greenhouse gas pollution in 10 years, including in all electricity generation, vehicles, agriculture, homes, commercial buildings, and manufacturing, regardless of cost.”

This question is clearly designed to invoke various connotations. For one, the “10 year” time-frame primes respondents to be thinking about the proposed solution as a stand-in for the Green New Deal (GND), which has been widely vilified through right wing media’s disinformation about its actual contents. Furthermore, the long list of types of institutions that would require elimination of greenhouse gas pollution is meant to feel exhaustive to the respondent, thereby priming them to think what is being suggested is excessive or an “overreach.” Finally, the phrase “regardless of cost” is suggestive of criticisms that taxpayers as a whole will shoulder an unreasonable financial burden in order to pay for large-scale government action on climate.

It’s worth noting that, even despite the many ways this question was loaded, it still received 55% total support, meaning a majority of respondents still approved of the policy.

Another of the Chamber’s findings from its survey is even more dubious. It pits the “Cleaner, Stronger” agenda against the GND, and asks respondents which approach they prefer, and finds that across the political spectrum, the majority of respondents preferred “Cleaner, Stronger.”

Specifically, respondents were asked “Which option would you prefer as a focus of our national and state elected leaders?” and given to options to choose between:

‘Cleaner, Stronger’: America focusing on using its resources responsibly and safely by implementing a ‘cleaner, stronger’ energy agenda that prioritizes investments in innovation and advanced technology to reduce emissions.

Eliminating Greenhouse Gas Emissions: America focusing on requiring a transition to the Green New Deal’s proposal to eliminate greenhouse gas emissions from the U.S. economy in 10 years, regardless of cost.

As Stronberg argues, “The comparison of its announced Cleaner, Stronger America Agenda with the GND alone is deceitful. Only in a two-way comparison of the GND and the Chamber’s American Energy: Cleaner, Stronger campaign can rejection of the one be considered support for the other—even then such a conclusion would be suspect.”

The question falsely implies that pursuing a GND-style approach will not involve any investment in innovation and technology. It also uses the same misleading language to stand in for the GND as it did earlier, portraying the GND as a radical policy and “Cleaner, Stronger” as more measured and therefore reasonable. A GEI press release calls “Cleaner, Stronger” a “realistic alternative to addressing energy and environmental issues.”

What this framing leaves out is that a reliance on the private sector could itself be easily portrayed as the more radical policy. Taking strong legislative action against climate change is a commonsense way of ensuring that the United States meets its global climate action responsibility; pursuing a deregulatory agenda is a recipe for making climate change worse rather than better. But the Chamber wants us thinking about only about the political ease of each approach, rather than what is actually needed to properly address climate change.

The Cleaner, Stronger agenda’s use of PR-friendly buzzwords and highly questionable survey methods is all aimed at a singular goal: deregulating the energy industry, allowing fossil fuel industries to continue to profit off the emission of greenhouse gases that will have a devastating effect on the climate. We should not fall for this deception. The Chamber may pretend its plan is a sufficient response to climate change, but we must be honest that avoiding catastrophic levels of global warming requires significant legislative and regulatory action.

If you have been following this blog for a while, you know full well that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s hostility to environmental solutions is nothing new. To give just a couple of examples, the Chamber litigated against the Clean Air Act; it co-sponsored a sham study that President Trump later cited to justify withdrawing from the Paris Climate Accord; it has sued the EPA at least 15 times; and it once even infamously called for a “Scopes Monkey Trial of the 21st century” to put climate science on trial. Public Citizen even debated the U.S. Chamber on NBC’s Meet the Press over Obama’s EPA plan to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from power plants.

Others have taken notice of the Chamber throwing its weight around in the energy arena, including Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI). In a recent letter to Pope Francis, Sen. Whitehouse highlighted how the Pope’s global goal of climate action and emissions reductions is being undercut in the United States by the massive lobbying power of Big Oil. Sen. Whitehouse even explicitly called out the Chamber’s role in Big Oil’s sabotage of efforts at climate solutions, noting that “[g]roups like the American Petroleum Institute, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers and others have been employed as adversaries of meaningful climate legislation, in some cases with little apparent support for their opposition from the majority of the companies that make up their membership.”

The senator hit the nail on the head when it comes to the role the U.S. Chamber plays in propping up Big Oil’s lobbying efforts. The Chamber is collectively receiving millions of dollars from ExxonMobil, Chevron, Conoco Philips, Occidental Petroleum, Philips 66, Hess, Apache, Tesoro Petroleum, Marathon Oil, Marathon Petroleum, and Noble Energy—and those are just the companies we know about because of their own spending disclosures, given that the Chamber does not disclose its donors. All of this adds up to massive lobbying power in the legislative sphere directed toward Big Oil’s interests, as the Chamber was, in 2017, the largest lobbying organization by spending in the country.

For its part, the Chamber is not at all ashamed of its role in propping up polluting energy sources to the exclusion of clean energy solutions that could ameliorate the effects of climate change or slow it down. Earlier this month, Chamber president Thomas J. Donohue published a blog post entitled “America Seizes Control of Its Energy Destiny,” celebrating the U.S.’s massively renewed focus on fossil fuel extraction and supply “bolstered by the Trump administration’s emphasis on pro-growth energy policies.” In other words, the Big Oil companies that make up the Chamber’s members and donors stand to profit hugely off of a shameless return to promoting fossil fuels to the detriment of green, renewable energy sources—and our environment.

Donohue’s post also promotes the Chamber’s Global Energy Institute, which works to “unify policymakers, regulators, business leaders and the American public” behind a Big Oil-friendly energy agenda. The Institute proudly touts buzzwords like “innovation,” “clean energy,” and “efficiency,” but the actual policies it advocates for are just the opposite. For example, it calls for offshore drilling and hydraulic fracturing (or “fracking”) that represent the same things Big Oil has always wanted: domination of the U.S. energy market to maximize profit, with no regard for the environmental destruction caused along the way.

True to form, the Chamber has also been painting the fossil fuel industry as the put-upon victim of vicious attacks by some massive opposition out to get them. In a recent post called “The Climate Change Tort Racket,” the Chamber’s Institute for Legal Reform wrote that “[p]laintiffs’ attorneys and left-leaning politicians are ganging up to shake down big oil.” The post asserts that these big bad plaintiffs are seeking to rob the poor oil industry of its resources, “looking for quick cash.” This, of course, ignores the plainly observable reality that Big Oil is a lobbying behemoth, armed with all of the legal power that the money of corporate mammoths can buy. Big Oil is Goliath, not David. Not to mention that Big Oil’s business is threatening all of human civilization with runaway global warming, and Big Oil has known about the threat longer than just about anyone and has been actively lying about it.

As Sen. Whitehouse’s letter to Pope Francis makes clear, the Big Oil lobby in the U.S., as propped up by the likes of the U.S. Chamber, has been an immovable obstacle in the way of the United States meeting its global obligations to reduce carbon emissions and promote climate solutions. Through blocking meaningful climate legislation, and through lobbying an extremely corporate-friendly Republican-controlled White House and Congress to remove barriers on the fossil fuel industry and deter them from alternative energy sources, the hope for the U.S. to be a global leader on climate issues seems grim.

Still, all hope is not lost. Nearly half of the Chamber’s board members have taken pledges to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and a number of companies have already left the Chamber over its environmental policies. Customers who buy products from otherwise forward-thinking companies speaking out is one of the best ways to create enough momentum to get our nation’s leaders to finally stand up to Big Oil, fully embrace clean, renewable energy and become a force for positive global impact on mitigating climate change. By pressuring the Chamber’s members to #DropTheChamber and signing the petition to urge Pepsi, Disney, and Gap to stop funding the Chamber, the public can play a major role in moving the 800 pound gorilla that is the Chamber away from its current status quo of squashing climate solutions.

This Earth Day, we hope you will take some time to join with us in reflecting on the effect our lifestyles have on the planet and to make positive changes. We would also like for corporations that claim to be environmentally responsible to have that same introspection and take forward-thinking action.

Earlier this month, Australian miner BHP Billiton finalized its decision that it would be withdrawing from the World Coal Association over differences on climate change. Notably, it also announced it would remain a member of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Previously, the miner has been an outspoken advocate for the Paris Climate Agreement and was publicly considering leaving the Chamber over the Chamber’s lobbying against the Agreement. Even a brief glance at the Chamber’s shameful history on environmental issues reveals what a mistake BHP has made in staying with the Chamber.

The Chamber habitually throws around its more than $272 million in corporate-donated money and its significant lobbying weight to pursue a climate agenda beholden to the fossil fuel industry and Big Oil. It has frequently stood in opposition to environmental safeguards like the Clean Water Rule, the National Ambient Air Quality Standards, and the Stream Protection Rule. It has brought a lawsuit against the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to block implementation of the Clean Power Plan. In fact, the Chamber sued the EPA 15 times during a recent three-year period.

Most notoriously, the Chamber has routinely attempted to block efforts to combat climate change. In 2009, the Chamber infamously called for a “Scopes monkey trial of the 21st century” to put climate science on trial. It has also funded a now-debunked study on the Paris Climate Agreement that dramatically overstated the potential costs of the Agreement and ignored its benefits. President Trump later cited this sham “study” as part of his rationale to pull out of the Paris Agreement.

BHP’s website has an entire section on the environment, with subsections devoted to “climate change” and “water” among other topics. Its continued support of the Chamber, however, is in effect condoning the Chamber’s constant attacks on the environment.

If BHP is truly committed to engaging on climate and green energy issues, it should take a consistent stance in which organizations it will refuse to do business with. A number of companies have already left the Chamber over its environmental policies including its anti-climate advocacy. No company that proclaims to care about the environment, sustainability, public health or the planet should remain a member.

This is why we call on the many corporations that fund it to #DropTheChamber. This Earth Day, please sign the petition to tell companies like Gap, Pepsi, and Disney to make a better decision than BHP and quit the Chamber and leave its fossilized thinking behind and put our planet on a better path to the future.

Just before Congress escaped town for the Fourth of July recess, the U.S. House Appropriations Committee released its draft fiscal year 2018 Financial Services and General Government (FSGG) Appropriations bill. The FSGG appropriations bill provides annual funding for the U.S. Treasury Department, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), and many other important agencies.

This year, however, the bill is packed chock full of ideological policy riders that have nothing to with funding the agencies the bill is supposed to provide for, and everything to do with pleasing the House majority’s corporate masters at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. By tucking these policy riders into must-pass legislation, the House leadership ensures that they have a better chance of becoming law than they would if they were forced to stand on their own (highly dubious) merits.

It may be the Fourth of July holiday week, but the release of the draft FSGG appropriations bill is likely to have been celebrated like Christmas in July in the marble hallways of the Chamber. The draft bill provides the Chamber with a veritable avalanche of presents, probably in response to the avalanche of money the Chamber has bestowed upon GOP candidates for Congress.

The biggest gift of all to the Chamber is the provision of the draft bill that would prevent the SEC from developing a rule that would require publicly traded companies to disclose their political spending to investors, including donations to politically active trade associations like the Chamber. The secrecy-obsessed Chamber has long lobbiedagainst such a rule. It has even reached out to member companies to urge them against voluntarily disclosing such information despite the fact that more than 1.2 million investors (retail and institutional) and members of the public have called for it.

If the policy rider prohibiting the development of a political spending disclosure rule qualifies as the proverbial new car in the garage on Christmas morning, then the rider eliminating the financial independence of the CFPB qualifies as the proverbial first class tickets to Paris for the Chamber and its friends on Wall Street. Fighting the existence of a strong, independent CFPB has been a lodestar for the Chamber. Why does the Chamber hate the CFPB so much? Probably because the CFBP is doing its job, working to protect consumers from unscrupulous and sometimes illegal behavior by the big financial institutions whose interests the Chamber represents. Indeed, the CFPB has obtained $11.8 billion in relief for over 29 million consumers. That’s $11.8 billion that wasn’t available for executive bonuses and stock buy-backs.

Unfortunately, bringing the CFPB under the heal of the very politicians who are most dependent upon corporate cash for their reelections isn’t the only policy rider in the draft FSGG appropriations bill that’s a giveaway to the Chamber’s Wall Street patrons. The draft bill contains a separate rider that would repeal the Volcker Rule. The Volcker Rule prevents banks from engaging in speculative trading with depositors’ money, thereby reducing the chances of another financial crisis. Of course, the Chamber and the Big Banks don’t like the Volcker Rule because it limits Wall Street’s ability to make short term profits that in turn produce big bonuses for executives.

As if all this weren’t enough, the draft FSGG appropriations bill contains another yuge gift for the Chamber and its financial services industry backers. The draft bill contains a rider which would halt a CFPB rule restricting the use of forced arbitration clauses buried in the fine print of consumer financial contracts. The Chamber has long campaigned against limits on this “rip-off” clause. Blocking this rule would essentially allow corporations to rip off consumers with impunity, as the Wells Fargo fake account scandal litigation has shown.

While it is undoubtedly depressing that our elected officials, who are supposed to represent the people, are instead finding new and ever more creative opportunities to shower gifts on their corporate benefactors, we still have time to make our voices heard. The House FSGG appropriations bill hasn’t yet passed through the full appropriations committee. So call your congressperson and tell him or her that you object to all of these harmful policy riders whose only purpose is to please the Chamber and the giant corporations intent upon buying our democracy.

Because if we don’t stand up and make our voices heard, then they very well may wind up singing some rather special Christmas carols at the Chamber this summer.

In 2016, the Chamber testified before Congress in opposition to the Paris Agreement, despite the fact that nearly half of the Chamber’s board members have taken public positions supporting efforts to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Now, with a Republican President seemingly low on policy ideas, the Chamber has been able to gain tremendous influence over the administration’s energy policy.

Let’s start with President Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Paris Agreement, a decision he justified by citing a “study,” which claimed that implementing the Paris Agreement would result in large job losses. The Chamber’s Institute for 21st Century Energy was one of just two sponsors of this sham study, which, much like many of the other alternative facts used to support decisions made by the Trump administration, has since been the subject of some well-deserved bad press.

As NRDC (and now several others) have pointed out, the report’s methodology is severely flawed, featuring unrealistically inflated job loss numbers. What’s more, the study also ignores the vast potential of energy efficiency, which could make reducing emissions cheaper and easier, all while keeping manufacturing jobs in the U.S., and improving the competitiveness of American industry.

In addition to providing Trump with a rationale to pull out of the Paris Agreement, the Chamber is also one of the lead plaintiffs in a lawsuit against the Clean Power Plan. It has opposed action on climate change and clean energy solutions at nearly every turn. The Chamber has sued the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) more than any other government agency, suing the agency 15 times during a recent three year period, and filing amicus briefs against the EPA in an additional 11 cases. The Chamber also called for a “Scopes Monkey Trial of the 21st Century” to put climate science on trial.

Of course, given the biggest companies that fund the Chamber, it’s unsurprising that it would ignore clean energy solutions and the dangers of fossil fuels to the detriment of the other smaller business members of the trade association. The Chamber is collectively receiving millions of dollars from ExxonMobil, Chevron, Conoco Philips, Occidental Petroleum, Philips 66, Hess, Apache, Tesoro Petroleum, Marathon Oil, Marathon Petroleum, Noble Energy, and Peabody Energy. And those are just the companies we know about! In addition, executives from ConocoPhillips and Sempra Energy sit on the Chamber’s board of directors. From repeatedly suing the EPA to undermining the Paris Agreement, the Chamber plays a key role in doing the dirty work for some of the world’s deadliest and most environmentally destructive companies.

While the Chamber has remained largely silent in the wake of Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Paris Agreement, we’ve heard an outpouring of opposition from U.S. business leaders. All those that made statements disavowed the decision, and several, including Disney’s Bob Iger, have stepped down from the Trump’s Business Council. What was distinctly missing from these business leaders’ statements, however, was any acknowledgement of the connection between the money these companies give to the Chamber, and Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Paris Agreement.

Membership dues and donations from companies like Disney, Gap, and Facebook (the very ones that publicly disagreed with the decision) are what makes it possible for the Chamber to fund things like the study Trump used to justify his decision to withdraw, as well as all the other anti-climate lobbying and litigation in which the Chamber engages. While it’s nice to see business leaders voice support for action on climate change, it’s difficult to take their statements seriously until they they stop funding the anti-climate Chamber.

Want to make your voice heard on this issue? Wondering what you can do to help? Join our #DropTheChamber campaign and sign our petition to the CEOs of Disney, Gap, and Pepsi and ask them to stop funding the anti-climate U.S. Chamber of Commerce!

How would you react if we told you that popular brands such as Disney, Pepsi, and Gap were funding the Trump agenda? That your hard-earned money was going to support Steve Bannon’s dreamed of “deconstruction of the administrative state” which would wipe away a whole host of public protections?

Surprised? Upset? Angry?

Sorry, but it’s true. You see, it turns out that Disney, Pepsi, and Gap all fund Washington’s most powerful lobbying group, a group that is the driving force behind much of the Trump/GOP agenda.

Which group is that? The U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

The Chamber, backed by nearly $275 million in corporate money, is Washington’s proverbial 800 pound gorilla. On issues as diverse as climate, clean air, clean water, fossil fuel production and pipelines, worker safety, financial regulation, net neutrality, healthcare, overtime pay, and deregulation in general, Trump and the GOP are ripping entire pages from the Chamber’s playbook.

Here at Public Citizen’s Chamber Watch project, we wanted to know which companies were funding the Chamber/Trump agenda, and we were particularly interested to know if companies that have made public commitments on climate, sustainability, clean water, and public health were funding the Chamber despite its long history of anti-climate, anti-environmental, pro-tobacco advocacy.

Based on our review of publicly-available information as well as conversations with company officials, we learned that many companies that have – at least on paper – good policies on climate, sustainability, and/or public health are still funding the Chamber.

And Disney, Pepsi, and Gap are among these companies.

Today, a diverse coalition of more than 50 groups in more than a dozen countries asks Disney, Gap, and Pepsi to stop funding a trade association that works against the environmental and public health policies these corporations claim to support. After all, how can we take these companies’ commitments on climate and public health seriously when they financially support an organization that is one of the lead plaintiffs against the Clean Power Plan, constantly lobbies for the fossil fuel industry, and lobbies in dozens of countries against anti-smoking laws and regulations?

Already, companies such as Apple and Pacific Gas & Electric have left the Chamber due to the Chamber’s anti-climate advocacy, and CVS left as a result of the Chamber’s pro-tobacco work. It is time for Disney, Pepsi, and Gap to do the same. To continue to fund the Chamber would be to render meaningless the positive steps these companies have taken on climate and/or tobacco.

What’s more, continued support of the Chamber poses a significant reputational risk to these companies, one that should concern their shareholders. Not only does membership in the Chamber render them complicit in the Chamber’s anti-climate and pro-tobacco advocacy, it also associates them with an explicitly partisan group.

In 2016, the Chamber formed an alliance with leading Republican luminaries to “Save the Senate” for the GOP. The Chamber ultimately wound up spending almost $30 million in dark money on congressional races, more than any other group that doesn’t disclose its donors. All of this money benefited Republican candidates.

Like all companies, Disney, Pepsi, and Gap have ideologically diverse customer bases, and presumably many of their customers would be angry to learn that companies they patronize are supporting such a partisan group. In an era when more and more consumers are linking their purchasing decisions to a company’s political activities, it is especially risky for brands like Disney, Pepsi, and Gap to associate themselves with a hyper-partisan group such as the Chamber that is one of the architects of the Trump agenda.

The Chamber’s agenda is bad for both public health and the health of the planet and its secret money partisan political spending is bad for the health of a transparent democracy. The time has come for Disney, Pepsi, and Gap to drop the Chamber.

If you’re a progressive, you might feel tempted to pop the champagne corks after the spectacular collapse of the GOP’s effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act (ACA) last week making it seem as if President Trump and Republican Congress may not be ready for prime time governing.

With all of these stories dominating the news cycle, some might think that Trump administration and GOP Congress are simply not ready to govern. Hobbled by incompetence and internal squabbling, they seem to lurch from one fiasco to the next.

However, the daily headlines of scandals mask one area where Trump and the GOP Congress have been successful at advancing the Republican agenda: they have already succeeded in pursuing the most aggressive regulatory rollback since the Reagan administration.

The main driver of this deregulatory agenda is the big business behemoth that is the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Sure, it may have been Steve Bannon who uttered the words, “deconstruct the administrative state,” but it is the Chamber along with its big business allies who behind this drive to gut critical public protections.

So forgive us for being Debbie Downers and for corking the champagne as we take a moment to bring you up to speed on what the GOP, Chamber, and Trump have succeeded in doing during the first two months of this administration.

The past two months have been marked by an aggressive use of the heretofore rarely used Congressional Review Act (CRA), which allows Congress to strike down regulatory protections issued in the final months of a previous administration using expedited procedures. Hundreds of public protections are at risk through the CRA, 15 have been repealed by the House, 12 in the Senate, and already 7 have been signed by Trump.

Just this week, Trump signed four more CRA resolutions. Among them was the “Fair Pay and Safe Workplaces” rule, which barred companies from receiving federal contracts if they had a history of violating wage, labor or workplace safety laws. The U.S. Chamber has been lobbying against this rule since its creation, in an effort to protect big federal contractors from being finally held accountable. Another of these was a Bureau of Land Management rule known as “Planning 2.0,” which gave the federal government a greater role in land use decisions. This rule was opposed by the energy industry, and therefore the Chamber strongly lobbied for its demise.

Unfortunately, the CRA isn’t the only tool in the Trump Administration’s toolbox. Trump has also issued several executive orders (EOs) undoing our public protections. He issued an EO mandating that two regulations are to be repealed for every new one that goes on the books. This week, he signed an EO aimed at undoing numerous climate initiatives put in place by the Obama administration. The EO includes telling the EPA and other agencies to rollback components of the Clean Power Plan, reconsider carbon standards for new coal plants, reassess methane emission regulations, as well as several other changes sought by the fossil fuel industry. And, earlier this month, Trump announced the EPA would review and likely weaken Obama’s fuel economy standards for cars and light trucks in the post-2022 period. While there may be obstacles to achieving all of this, it is still a huge step in the wrong direction if we want to have a serious chance at limiting the impacts of global warming. And, sadly, these deregulatory these moves were all sought by the Chamber, which is no stranger to battling Obama-era environmental policies. In the course of just 3 years, the Chamber opposed the EPA in court 26 times and they have lobbied on these issues for years.

Most recently, the U.S. House of Representatives did the bidding of corporate America by using the CRA to vote to repeal Broadband Privacy Protections, which prevent Internet Service Providers (ISPs) from tracking the browsing habits of customers without their permission and place obligations on ISPs to keep their customers’ data secure, giving customers more control over their personal data and privacy. Earlier this month the Chamber sent a letter to the Science and Transportation Committee leadership urging members to vote in favor of this CRA stripping Americans of their internet privacy.

So there you have it. Trump and the GOP Congress are successfully dismantling many important public protections including those protecting clean water, clean air, worker health and safety, and internet privacy. And the Chamber has been behind most of these regulatory rollbacks we’ve seen in the past 60 days. While Steven Bannon may falsely claim that deconstructing the “administrative state” will benefit the people, the reality is that it is not the people that are behind this agenda, it is the Chamber and giant corporations that are pushing it. Empty populist rhetoric aside, the administration’s deregulatory zeal is proof positive of the overwhelming influence of its corporate masters.

Political rhetoric blaming government regulations for stifled small business growth is at an all-time high, and it’s no surprise that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is behind most of it. The Chamber has a long history of opposing regulations under the guise of being a voice for small business. Whether it’s the overtime rule that would provide overtime pay to millions of middle income Americans, the Clean Water Rule to protect our streams and rivers, the Clean Power Plan to limit power plant emissions of greenhouse gases, and the open internet rules to preserve net neutrality, the Chamber has yet to meet a regulation it didn’t want rolled back.

The Chamber also called for the repeal of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), supporting the American Health Care Act, despite the 24 million who would lose health care. But it doesn’t stop there. Tom Donohue and his big business allies would also like to see a repeal of Dodd-Frank Act, and specifically condemned the Volcker Rule to limit speculative trades by banks of the kind that led to the 2008 Financial Crisis and has vowed to fight against the fiduciary rule, which protects retirement savers from dishonest investment advisors.

Not only has the Chamber come out in favor or nearly every CRA challenge we’ve seen since Trump took office, it is also a strong supporter of the Regulatory Accountability Act, which would hamstring future efforts to protect consumers, workers, and the environment by layering on so many additional process requirements that rulemaking to protect the public would essentially come to a halt. Just last week, the Chamber released two video ads, targeting Senators Heitkamp and McCaskill, urging them to support the RAA.

All of this, under the clever, yet dishonest PR scheme that regulations hurt, and never help, small businesses. It makes perfect sense- if the Chamber and big business want to accomplish the corporate windfall that would result from a deregulatory agenda, the best way to do so is to tout themselves as the advocate of Main Street.

However, many of the regulations that Donohue mentions don’t even apply to small businesses, and others, like the Clean Water Rule and the CFPB actually help small businesses.

While these conservative talking points often misleadingly focus on the burdens that regulations place on small business, surveys and poll data show that the very owners of these small businesses generally do not agree with their alleged advocates. According to a poll by Small Business Majority, 86% of small business owners agree some regulation of business is necessary for a modern economy, and 93% of them agree their business can live with some regulation if it is fair, manageable and reasonable. What’s more, 78% of small employers agree regulations are important in protecting small businesses from unfair competition and to level the playing field with big business. Another 79% of small business owners support having clean air and water in their community in order to keep their family, employees and customers healthy, and 61% support standards that move the country towards energy efficiency and clean energy. This runs directly contradictory to the Chamber’s lobbying for the repeal of Stream Protection rule, and the Oil Anti-corruption rule, which would leaving communities susceptible to water pollution by coal miners, and enable oil tycoons to avoid transparency.

Regulations do help small businesses and a lack of regulation can have detrimental effects. Just yesterday, a small business owner testified before the House Small Business Committee and urged lawmakers to ensure that public protections are in place to give his catering business fundamental confidence that the food and water they serve and consume is safe. Regulations provide the market with a basic level of certainty to ensure we are protected from tainted food, unsafe drugs, poisoned water, and polluted air.

There are other regulations, such as anti-trust laws that address price discrimination and price fixing, that help small business owners by leveling the playing field against larger businesses. The Chamber also fails to mention the many regulations enforced under the Small Business Administration that small businesses are prioritized for a certain set of government contracts.

When regulations don’t exist, it is typically small businesses who suffer most. The Deepwater Horizon explosion in the Gulf of Mexico devastated small businesses in the tourism and fishing industry, and not surprisingly it was the U.S. Chamber of Commerce who went to court on behalf of British Petroleum and sought to keep the local small businesses out of court, all the while claiming to be the voice of Main Street.

While the Chamber is spending big bucks to lobby against commonsense protections, it is crucial to remember that clean air, clean water, and regulation of Wall Street protect the public. Clear rules protect small businesses and manufacturers from powerful interests who use their financial advantage to try to rig the system in their favor.

While the media has been focusing much of its attention over the past few weeks on the inauguration, protests to the aforementioned inauguration, and a slew of alternative facts, Chamber Watch did not fail to tune into U.S. Chamber of Commerce President Tom Donohue’s annual State of American Business address.

Over the past 10 years, with Democrats controlling either Congress, the White House, or both, this annual speech has served as little more than a corporate wish list, with slim to no chance of wishes coming to policy fruition. But this year, with a Republican Congress that the Chamber spent big to elect and a Republican President almost completely devoid of policy ideas, much on Donohue’s wish list has a decent chance of becoming vital to the Trump/Ryan agenda. So if you want to get a handle on where Trump and the new Congress may be intending to steer the country, there’s no better place to start than with Donohue’s speech. However, on the off chance you don’t have the time or desire to listen, we’ve outlined his top priorities below:

1. Cutting Social Security and Medicare.

Despite seeing #LetsGrow emblazoned on the lectern and across our TweetDeck, the Chamber isn’t actually concerned about growth, or at least certainly not when it comes to growing the incomes of working Americans. If the Chamber was concerned with growing Americans’ incomes and the American economy, it would understand that consumer spending represents almost 70% of GDP. Of course, a lot of those consumers are seniors who receive Social Security benefits. In 2012, 57 million Americans received almost $800 billion in Social Security benefits. Economists estimate that Social Security benefits in turn generate approximately $1.4 trillion in economic output and more than 9.2 million jobs. Would the Chamber forgo this economic output and these jobs? The answer appears to be a thinly veiled yes.

2. Rolling back Regs

Next up on Donohue’s agenda is rolling back regulations. Among his top rollback priorities are the overtime rule that would provide overtime pay to millions of middle income Americans, the clean water rule to protect our streams and rivers, the Clean Power Plan to limit power plant emissions of greenhouse gases, and the open internet rules to preserve net neutrality. He also called for the repeal of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and the Dodd-Frank Act, and specifically condemned the Volcker Rule to limit speculative trades by banks of the kind that led to the 2008 Financial Crisis.

But Donohue’s anti-regulatory tirade didn’t end there. He also touted the deceptively-named Regulatory Accountability Act that would hamstring future efforts to protect consumers, workers, and the environment by layering on so many additional process requirements that rulemaking to protect the public would grind to a halt. He demanded that regulations limiting fossil fuel production be revoked. He renewed his vow to fight against the fiduciary rule which would protect retirement savers from unscrupulous investment advisors. He criticized the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) despite the fact that it has returned $11.4 billion to consumers harmed by the illegal practices of financial services corporations. And lastly, he vowed to defend forced arbitration from regulatory action just as the CFPB and other agencies are beginning to crack down on these abusive rip-off clauses that harm consumers and small businesses.

Amazingly and yet not surprisingly, Donohue justified killing all of these important and beneficial protections by claiming that they are harming small businesses. However, many of the regulations that Donohue mentions don’t even apply to small businesses. This is the case for the overtime rule, the ACA, and many provisions of the Dodd-Frank Act. Others, like the clean water rule and the CFPB actually help small businesses. Just like consumers, small businesses are often victimized by the shady lending practices of big financial services corporations, making the Chamber’s desire to gut the CFPB and defend forced arbitration completely inconsistent with their claims to defend small businesses.

3. Cutting the Corporate Income Tax

Donohue complained that the U.S. statutory rate is among the highest in the world, but what he didn’t say is that the effective corporate income tax rate is actually far below the average effective rate for industrialized countries. The Chamber’s agenda has nothing to do with growth or with expanding incomes for working Americans or with defending small businesses from alleged regulatory overreach and everything to do with putting more money in the pockets of big corporations and the extremely rich executives who run them. This trickle down agenda will not produce the GDP growth the Chamber claims. Even the International Monetary Fund has recognized that increasing income inequality is a drag on growth.

Donohue’s address was ostensibly all about increasing economic growth, but left unsaid was the critical question: growth for whom? While Donohue included some throwaway lines about “sound, long term economic growth,” “expand[ing] incomes,” and the importance of small business, the core of his speech focused on three things: cutting Medicare and Social Security, rolling back important laws and regulations that protect workers, consumers, and the environment, and cutting taxes on big corporations. Donald Trump may have campaigned as a populist, claiming that he would stand up to special interests and fight for the interests of working people, but if Tom Donohue’s State of American Business address is anything to go by, Trump and the Republican Congress will pursue an agenda that puts Big Business and the wealthy first and everyone else last.

While many Americans are signing up for a gym membership or vowing to read for fun, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is at it again with a slew of resolutions for the new year that, while they may line the pockets of Big Business and the very rich, promise nothing but trouble for the rest of us and the planet we call home. Without further ado, our list of the Chamber’s new year’s resolutions for 2017:

Shed those last few pounds regulations

Now that several Chamber-alums are occupying key spots on the transition team, the Chamber has set its sights on kicking off the new year with a rollback of federal regulations. The Chamber will continue to flex its dark money-fueled muscle in the hard-fought battle to pass the Midnight Rules Relieve Act (MRAA). The MRAA would allow Congress to revoke a plethora of public protections under the Congressional Review Act with just one vote. This would have severe consequences for our health, safety and economic security and the Chamber’s support of the MRAA demonstrates once again that it sides with big corporations’ bottom lines over people’s well being. Also making the top of their resolution list is the passage of the Regulatory Accountability Act (RAA) which would add dozens of new requirements to the regulatory process and would allow non-expert judges to second-guess the decisions made by an agency’s technical experts, thereby giving industry additional opportunities to attack public protections. New year, same deceptively named legislation!

Get Outdoors While You Still Can

While we don’t know if 2017 will finally be the year the Chamber makes up its mind on the science of climate change, we do know that their list of resolutions includes killing the Clean Power Plan, the Obama administration’s signature initiative to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from power plants. The Chamber is also advocating to undo the Clean Water Rule, designed to protect streams and wetlands, and by extension, our drinking water. And if that wasn’t enough, the Chamber is also fighting to reverse President Obama’s decision to close much of the Atlantic and Arctic basins to offshore drilling. If the Chamber gets its wish, the great outdoors may not be so great anymore.

Spend Less Money…On Workers

The Chamber has yet again resolved to stand up for the interests of very wealthy individuals at the expense of hardworking Americans. The Chamber will continue to oppose an increase in the minimum wage and implementation of the overtime rule that would make millions of middle income Americans eligible for overtime pay. The Chamber also intends to stiff hardworking Americans by asking for a repeal of several other Obama administration Executive Orders, including (but certainly not limited to!) the Establishing Paid Sick Leave for Federal Contractors EO, which provide workers at companies doing business with the federal government the opportunity to earn up to 7 days of paid sick leave per year. New year, but no new money in your paycheck!

Get Organized Unorganized

Just like some of us resolve every year to spend less money eating out or to stop smoking, the Chamber resolves every year to weaken unions and the protections they offer workers. In 2017, the Chamber has resolved to continue pushing laws weakening unions, seeking to build on “victories” in states such as Wisconsin, Michigan, and Indiana. New year, same war against unions!

Party Like it’s 2007

Ain’t no party like a financial crisis party! In keeping with its role as a lobbyist for Wall Street, the Chamber will continue its fight to roll back the Dodd-Frank Act, passed in the wake of the financial crisis as a way to prevent future financial crises. Dodd-Frank instituted a host of consumer protections as well as limits on reckless risk taking by banks. One important part of Dodd-Frank that the Chamber adamantly opposes is the Volcker Rule which prohibits big banks from using depositors’ funds for proprietary bets. The Chamber will also continue to oppose the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s efforts to combat unfair forced arbitration clauses and class action bans. These “rip-off” clauses prevent consumers from having their day in court and offer big corporations another way to avoid accountability for corporate wrongdoing as the recent Wells Fargo scandal has shown. Another safeguard that the Chamber seeks to eliminate in 2017 is the fiduciary rule, which protects retirement savers from greedy financial advisors. New year, same defense of Wall Street greed!

So while many of us are wondering if we can really make it to the weekend without a drink or just how far into February our other resolutions will last, we should be more concerned that the Chamber is working to strip us of public protections, all while destroying the only planet we’ve got. Perhaps we should add a resolution to our list: oppose the U.S. Chamber’s harmful agenda.